If the shops were more realistic with there prices then great, but some shops are way over on their prices. Take a Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb card, jessops are £32 each whilst I bought a 4Gb version for less than £32.
Surely if a shop wants to survive in the 21st century then they need to be more competitive.

I wrote:
I only asked the salesman if I could have a look, I did not waste any of his time and walked away from that shop having spent £55.00 which was my original intention.

It also saddens me to see the independant shops dissappearing. Where can I buy quality fruit & veg today, certainly not at Tesco. I have to drive to a farm shop 6 miles away.
Have you seen Tesco's latest advert for a slimming club? They will not stop until they sell everything and they (Tesco) are already selling houses.

As a newbie to all this DSLR stuff with only a small budget to work to, I looked at a tripod only a week or so ago in my local photographic store and actually felt I had to buy it. A little more research on the internet on that particular tripod and it ticked all my boxes.

I was not prepared to pay the £92.99 that they were asking locally and shopped on the internet for the best price and actually bought the exact same tripod for £64.95 saving £28.04 (30% saving) from CameraKing

Take a look at the Velbon Sherpa 600R Tripod, it has a good strength, nice height and the center column can be inverted, very useful.(head also included)
Velbon homepage

I am a newbie but felt this tripod was worth mentioning.

Hope it helps